‘We want to go out!’: 18,000 starving inside Syrian refugee camp

Mass starvation, disease and hopelessness abound in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. Although a UN agency has managed to make its first food aid delivery to the rebel-held camp in weeks, many people are on the brink of starvation.

The camp is located on the edge of the territory the Syrian
government considers under its control, in a southern Damascus
neighborhood, just five miles away from the capital’s center.

Rebel forces have been holding the camp for more than a year and
the army started a siege in June. Nothing and no one comes in or
out, as 18,000 people continue to be kept in a state of limbo.

Some of the Palestinian refugees living in the camp have been
there for decades, victims of the Palestinian people’s conflict
with Israel. Now they are hoping desperately for a resolution to
this conflict, in Syria.

RT made it as close as possible to the edge of the camp under
government supervision, to observe as the UN Relief Works Agency
(UNRWA), in league with Syrian and Palestinian authorities,
delivers the much-needed food aid.

There were cases when people were let out to come back with
supplies; but only women and elderly men. They knew they could
not leave because their families continue to be trapped inside.

“It’s as bad as it can get, I’m desperately hungry...we have
nothing to eat,” one woman told RT’s Maria Finoshina. There
is no free passage deeper into the camp, as snipers are on the
ready to shoot anyone who ventures in.

The UNRWA hopes it will be able to continue food deliveries. On
Thursday, it managed its first delivery in two weeks, consisting
of 1,000 food parcels – the biggest yet.

"The distribution is ongoing. This is the first aid to enter
the camp since January 21, when UNRWA distributed 138 food
parcels," UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness said.

Another convoy entered the camp Friday.

Speaking to Reuters, Gunness said that they hope “to continue
and increase substantially the amount of aid being delivered...
with each passing hour, their need increases.”

Even in this climate of desperation, versions as to what exactly
is going on differ massively. So much so that Reuters claims that
the UNRWA has knowledged that one of its latest convoys was fired
upon by government forces determined to starve the Palestinian
refugees. The same tune is being sung by opposition activists,
claiming that the government is using hunger as a weapon.

Yarmouk families, meanwhile, continue to perish – and seem to be
rather blaming the rebel forces.

“There is no food, nothing to eat or drink, the militants are
inside,” one resident told RT. “I swear by the soul of
the Prophet we want this to stop. What is our guilt? We want to
go out!”

“We cannot leave – the militants prevent us,” another
resident said.

A total of 85 people in the camp have died since June, and many
fear the number will continue to rise if the aid situation is not
restored and supplies do not start running normally.

The stalemate has been going on for months now, with no end in
sight – despite the Palestinian authorities stepping in.

Palestinian ambassador to Syria Mahmoud Al Khaldi told RT that
the authorities “are negotiating with the militants to
convince them to go out. We tell them that this is of no
importance and these are just people – they’ll not gain any
strategic goal. We had three rounds of talks, but we failed. And
I don’t think they’ll accept this – it’s clear.”

Sieges have been a tried and tested rebel tactic for three years
now. Just outside Damascus, the town of Adra has been held since
mid-December 2013, with 5,000 of those who did not flee in time
held prisoner in their own homes and used as human shields, just
in case the government forces decide to storm the town by force.
They are now encamped just outside the town – but cannot storm it
for fear of causing civilian deaths.

Anwar Raja, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine, sees the rebels’ tactics as an obvious move to
insinuate the government’s complicity in the suffering of its own
people.

“The Nusra Front and the Takfiri groups are trading on the
hunger of the people. They want to say to the world: ‘See: the
people are hungry.’ It’s like the residents are kidnapped inside
their own camp, inside their own home, and the militants are
negotiating over them, negotiating their souls,” Raja said.

“They claim that the Syrian state is besieging Palestinians
in the camp. They want to invert the image and the truth, saying
that the Syrian government is part of the killing force, as they
don't do anything to protect the people. They want people to hate
the regime.”

According to Raja, an evacuation plan has been worked out with
the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to evacuate "hundreds" of
Yarmouk residents. The evacuees were transported to several
hospitals, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday,
but the Red Crescent could not be reached to confirm the details
of the operation.